US-China feud over coronavirus erupts at World Health Assembly

President Donald Trump returns from Camp David to the White House in Washington, May 17th, 2020. China’s President Xi Jinping pledged $2 billion to fight the virus, a move the US criticised as an effort to head off scrutiny of its handling of the pandemic. (Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times)

A meeting of the World Health Organization that was supposed to chart a path for the world to combat the coronavirus pandemic instead on Monday turned into a showcase for the escalating tensions between China and the United States over the virus.

President Xi Jinping of China announced at the start of the forum that Beijing would donate $2 billion toward fighting the coronavirus and dispatch doctors and medical supplies to Africa and other countries in the developing world.

The contribution, to be spent over two years, amounts to more than twice what the United States had been giving the global health agency before President Donald Trump cut off American funding last month, and it could catapult China to the forefront of international efforts to contain a disease that has claimed at least 315,000 lives.

But it was also seen — particularly by US officials — as an attempt by China to forestall closer scrutiny of whether it hid information about the outbreak to the world.

Xi made his announcement by videoconference to the World Health Assembly, an annual decision-making meeting of the WHO that is being conducted virtually this year because of safety considerations during the pandemic. Trump declined to address the two-day gathering, providing the Chinese president an opening to be one of the first world leaders to address the 194 member states.

“In China, after making painstaking efforts and sacrifice, we have turned the tide on the virus and protected lives,” Xi said. “We have done everything in our power to support and assist countries in need.”

Late Monday, Trump responded in a scathing letter in which he accused WHO of an “alarming” dependence on China. In the letter, addressed to WHO’s director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the president said, “It is clear the repeated missteps by you and your organisation in responding to the pandemic have been extremely costly for the world.”

The letter’s four pages detail Trump’s grievances against China and WHO over the pandemic and ends with a threat to permanently pull US funding and revoke American membership in the organisation if it did not “commit to substantive improvements within the next 30 days.”

Though the president did not specify the changes he was seeking, he said that “the only way forward for the World Health Organization is if it can actually demonstrate independence from China.”

Trump had halted the United States’ contributions to WHO last month, claiming that the organisation had mishandled the coronavirus outbreak as it emerged in China. Last year, the United States contributed about $553 million of the WHO’s $6 billion budget.

But Trump administration officials swiftly denounced China’s aid announcement as an attempt to influence the WHO, which is facing pressure from member states to investigate whether it was complicit in Beijing’s lack of transparency in the early days of the outbreak in Wuhan.

China’s “commitment of $2 billion is a token to distract from calls from a growing number of nations demanding accountability for the Chinese government’s failure to meet its obligations under international health regulations to tell the truth and warn the world of what was coming,” John Ullyot, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said in a statement. “As the source of the outbreak, China has a special responsibility to pay more and to give more.”

The director-general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, nodded to criticism of the organisation’s own handling of the early weeks of the outbreak, saying the agency would review “lessons learned” about its global response.

But he did not address Trump’s insistence that the health agency investigate allegations widely dismissed by scientists that the coronavirus originated in a lab in China. Xi in his speech called for any examination to take place after the health crisis had subsided.

In recent weeks, Chinese leaders and citizens have become increasingly aware of the international criticism and open hostility over China’s initial handling of the outbreak. Top American officials have been scathing, but European leaders have also spoken of mysteries surrounding the outbreak in China that needed to be addressed.

China’s aggressive diplomacy and international anger over exports of Chinese-made medical equipment that turned out to be shoddy have also contributed to the rising tensions.

About 100 nations have called for an independent investigation into the origins of the pandemic.

Against that backdrop, and with the imminent start of the annual National People’s Congress in Beijing on Friday, Xi’s move appeared to be an effort to win over international support and calm the public anxieties in China.

“Certainly this is a very tricky moment for Xi,” said Dali L. Yang, a political scientist at the University of Chicago. “Clearly he doesn’t want this really to be hanging above him, given how many countries are engaged and have asked for an investigation into the origins of the virus.”

Trump’s retreat from the global stage has created openings for China, which has been seeking to reshape multilateral institutions long dominated by Washington.

Ryan Hass, a China scholar at the Brookings Institution, said a familiar pattern had emerged. “Whenever Trump withdraws the US from international leadership, Xi announces that China will step forward,” said Hass, who was a senior Asia director on President Barack Obama’s National Security Council. “Xi has been ruthlessly opportunistic about seeking to exploit America’s withdrawal from global leadership for China’s advantage.”